In 2013, life expectancy from birth
in Russia is 59.1 for men and 73 for women, far behind the figures in Europe.
But even more striking are life expectancy figures at age 50.A 50-year-old Russian man can expect to live 21fewer years than a Swede can, 19 years fewer
than an American, and 15 years fewer than a Pole.

These differences reflect, Pain
says, extraordinarily high death rates among adult male Russians, and those in
turn reflect high rates of alcohol consumption and within that of vodka rather
than beer and wine.That in turn reflects
both how a society sees itself and what the population and the government are
prepared or not prepared to do.

The Swedish case is especially
instructive for Russia, the Moscow scholar says.Swedes turned to vodka when Sweden became an
empire and consumed even more of it when Sweden lost its empire. Then, a
combination of religious, civic, and worker movement promoted sobriety and
demanded that the state impose severe restrictions on voda.

In short, he says, Sweden was able
to begin “overcoming this national disease from below,” by the action of civil
society. And then the state largely completed the task by a series of laws that
made it more difficult and expensive for Swedes to use vodka as opposed to
other forms of alcohol.

There were three sectoral reasons
why Sweden has been successful in ways Russia has not.Sweden has a social state that serves the
population, a national one that defines itself in terms of the individual and
his right, and a legal state “capable of regulating life with the help of
laws.Russia lacks all of those.

Pain entitles the last section of his article “Why
do people in Poland life longer than they do in Russia?”Poland and Russia share a vodka culture and
even fight over who invented the drink.But unlike in Russia, over the last two decades, Poland has adopted the
Swedish approach. Vodka consumption has fallen, and life expectancy has
increased.

The same thing has been true in the
Czech Republic and other former Soviet bloc states, again except for Russia.
They are cutting alcohol consumption and also spending more on public health.
With regard to the latter, Russia spends half of what Serbia does in percentage
terms and now ranks 106th in the world, “just after Togo, the Congo
and Belize.”

That doesn’t mean that pensioners in
these countries have a life of luxury, Pain continues.A Polish retiree gets about 40 percent of his
former salary, but in Russia, he receives only 27 percent.

“In Russia, much is said about the
welfare of the people, but little is done,” Pain says. “In this regard, as in
many others, contemporary Russia recalls the Soviet Union of Brezhnev’s times
... In the USSR, the very first reaction to the beginning of an increase in
mortality was to stop publishing any exact statistics about mortality.”So too it is again now.

Russians no longer compare
themselves with people in the West because the West is viewed as hostile.But all the talk about “’a special path’ for
Russia” does not provide any “definite direction” for action.As a result, Russians have lost their
orientation and their hope and faith about the future.

He quotes the observation of Valery
Fedorov, the head of VTsIOM, that this “lack of faith” is “the Achilles’ heel”
of Russia.” If that is not addressed, not only will vodka consumption continue
to limit the life expectancy of Russians, but the prospects for the nation will
be limited as well.